Dinohunters
Plot n 1944, in the midst of , two fighter pilots – an American soldier named Hank Marlow and a Japanese soldier named Gunpei Ikari – parachute onto an island in the South Pacific after a . They both engage in close combat, with Ikari gaining the upper hand, but the fight is interrupted by a behemoth ape known as . In the present day, Dr William Penward hires former Captain James Conrad, a skilled , to guide an expedition to map out an island known as "". Their military escort is the Griffins, a helicopter squadron led by Colonel Hamilton and his subordinates, Major Jack Chapman and Captain Earl Cole. The group is joined by and photojournalist Mason Weaver, who believes the expedition is a secret . Upon arrival at Skull Island, Packard's men begin dropping explosives developed by seismologist Houston Brooks to map out the island. However, the air unit is attacked by Kong, who kills a number of military personnel and scatters the others across the island. Packard regroups with some of the scattered survivors, including his door gunner Reles, pilot Glenn Mills, Cole, employee Steve Woodward, and Randa. After being confronted by Packard, Randa reveals his affiliation to the secret government organization Monarch, which was trying to prove the existence of monsters and determine their threat to humanity. The other survivors (Conrad, Weaver, Brooks, biologist San Lin, soldier Reg Slivko, and Landsat employee Victor Nieves) try to get to a rendezvous point to meet a resupply team arriving in three days' time. They encounter the local natives and an older Marlow. He reveals that Kong is the island's guardian, worshiped as a god by the natives for protecting the island's inhabitants from many predators, including reptilian underground monsters dubbed "Skullcrawlers". They have killed Kong's ancestors, leaving him as the last of his kind, and one killed Ikari. Cast * Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson and Additional Voices * Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson * Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson, Maggie Simpson and Additional Voices * Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson * Harry Shearer as * Hank Azaria as * Idris Elba as Colonel Hamilton. On the choice of Elba, Jackson, who is a fan of his, stated, "For me, it just clicked. He's such a formidable man." Jackson stated, "I had to go to Idris and tell him about my vision for this character. We discussed, who is this character? What's he about? What's his quest? What's his psychology? We tried to figure out if we saw the same guy. And we absolutely had all the same ideas and thoughts. He had a unique vision for who this character would be." On the character of Hamilton, Elba noted: "The character is a very interesting one. Nathan described the role as basically my character from Beasts of No Nation merged with Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now. And it was a very appropriate comparison to draw and that was how I approached it; Hamilton is this Colonel Kurtz figure who's gone a little bit mad with power.". Elba further stated that there was a "lot of comic relief" to Hamilton, but the character was not aware of it. * Scarlett Johansson as Anna, Hamilton's "number two" at the base who "befriends" Bart. Jackson stated that Johansson was his "first and only" choice for the role. On her character, Johansson commented "She's very severe; quite cold-hearted. Anna serves as Hamilton's personal spy; she manipulates emotions and entraps unsuspecting people quite easily. The way she interacts with anyone is very alluring... almost coquettish." * Gary Oldman as Dr. William Penward, a scientist at the base, who quickly develops a repartee with Lisa. Jackson wrote the film's dialogue specifically with Oldman in mind for the role. Oldman commented, "He's a very fatherly character, in his dynamic with Bart and Lisa. He becomes this father figure for them." Of his character and Lisa's relationship, Oldman stated "I think they find each other very intellectually stimulating." * Steve Zahn as , a scientist at the base. Of his character, Waltz stated, "He's very fussy. He's absentminded, and blusters quite a bit. He's the classic absent-minded professor sort of character" Since the character interacts with Homer a lot, Nathan Jackson had Dan Castellaneta and Christoph Waltz record their lines together; meaning that a lot of their dialogue was improvised. Waltz commented "My character bonds with Homer a lot and we end up forming this sort of Odd Couple dynamic - I'm the neat freak and he's the slob!" * Toby Kebbell as TBA * Ron Perlman as TBA Production At S89 Expo, Jackson and Gilmore confirmed the possibility of at least two more sequels, each based on a specific genre of film. Jackson commented they were searching for ideas for the sequel, but they were thinking around the idea of "a modern fantasy movie; bringing an aspect of myth and legend into the modern world, in a way that's never really been portrayed before". Jackson pitched the idea as a quasi-reboot of King Kong, which would detail the discovery of Skull Island in the present day. H Keeping his "lost island" idea, Jackson wrote in a story in which the Simpsons were shanghaied into joining a crew of explorers, who are planning to explore an uncharted island, home to prehistoric creatures and the ruins of a lost civilisation. When Matt Groening saw the script, however, he called the plot "schizophrenic" and stated that Jackson should scale it down, to instead focus the plot on the idea of a world filled with dinosaurs. It was in this meeting that Jackson figured out his final plot. In Jackson's words, "If I wanted to make a 'lost world' movie... why not set it in the Lost World; the original one that Conan Doyle wrote?" Jackson removed the lost civilisation and ancient technology from the script, saying that "The more fantastical the story, the more realistic you have to make it. The idea was to make this film very gritty; funny, yes, but still very, very gritty". Design For the creatures of the film, Jackson researched the prehistory of South America; however, the plateau was made as a "temporal melting pot", to make it seem strange and remarkable. Jackson's research unearthed "various strange creatures that were interesting in their own right"; in order to simplify, Jackson split the film's creatures into four main colonisation events throughout history. They were the Early Cretaceous, the Late Cretaceous, the Miocene and the Plio-Pleistocene. Princess Mononoke helped influence the design and approach of the creatures, Jackson stated, "Miyazaki‘s Princess Mononoke was actually a big reference in the way that the spirit creatures sort of have their own domains and fit within that. So a big thing was trying to make these creatures feel realistic and able to exist in an ecosystem that feels sort of wild and out there, and then also design things that simultaneously felt beautiful and horrifying at the same time." Casting Jackson revealed at S89 Expo that Idris Elba was in early talks to play the villain and he was confirmed for the role in the following months. Jackson noted that Elba's villain would be "the most formidable yet" and that "you've never seen a baddie like this." In April, Scarlett Johansson was added to the cast opposite Elba's villain and, shortly after, Steve Zahn was announced as well. In early July, Gary Oldman had joined the cast in a key role. Influences The story of the film is not independently taken from Kipling's works, but also borrows cinematic inspirations from other films, including the child-mentor relationship in (1953), the exploration of a dangerous world from King Kong (2005) and the use of a shadowy jungle figure from Apocalypse Now (1979). Reception Critical reception British newspapers The Guardian and The Times both gave the film four out of five stars. The Times' James Bone said that it "boasts the same sly cultural references and flashes of brilliance that have earned the television series a following that ranges from tots to comparative literature PhDs". The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw stated that it "gives you everything you could possibly want" and that he thought, "minutes was not long enough to do justice to 17 years of comedy genius". Nancy Cartwright and Yeardley Smith drew particular praise, with Randy Shulman describing them as having "elevated their vocal work to a craft that goes way beyond simple line readings". This was echoed by Peter Bradshaw, who said "when you're holding your own against Idris Elba, then you are a great actor." Cath Clarke of Time Out compared Elba's character of Colonel Hamilton to Sideshow Bob, calling him "baddie of the year." Matt Zoller Seitz of rogerebert.com also had high praise for Elba's portrayal of Hamilton stating: "His commanding menace is envisioned so powerfully that he'd be scary no matter what, but the character becomes a great villain through imaginative empathy. We understand and appreciate his point-of-view and that's what makes him scary." This was echoed by, who said that "Elba gives a performance more suited to a historical drama than an animated comedy." Some critics, however, disliked the film's darker tone. Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times felt that "once the movie wanders into its contemplations, the trenchancy kind of creaks and falls off."